Sunday, August 26, 2012

I've recently received some extremely positive feedback on my work, so naturally I wanted to share it here. The first is a review of The Cupid War from my new friend Nicki Weisz on her blog, Books Complete Me. Read the review by clicking here.

Next, I have two emails from new fan Charlie Checkers. The first concerned his thoughts on the German edition of Evil, which is a first for me. The second is in response to my request to print his first email here.

Dear Mr Carter,

I've just finished reading the German version of 'Evil?' and I wanted
to express my gratitude towards you for writing such a great book. It
made me overthink my opinions on many topics even though I don't
consider myself as someone with many prejudices. Especially since I
often reflect on religion, this book gave me some thought-provoking
impulses. I think it is important to make people think about topics
like homosexuality (which I find especially important since one of my
friends is homosexual and people often meet her with prejudice and
hate even though they don't even know her), racism and masturbation.
These topics are all 'taboos' somehow, but I think it is crucial to
figure them out. Thank you for this great book. I'll also read 'Epoch'
as soon as I get my hands on it. ;)
Your demons are so cute. Fon Pyre was intimidating at first, but it
was easy to like him since he likes coffee and doughnuts and in the
end, he's really funny and smart and cool. I also like Stuart so much,
he's so cool and brave!

There are two questions I'd really like to pose: Will there be a
sequel to 'Evil?'? I'd like to know how Stuart's journey goes on.
There are so many other fallen angels in the world, sure he will meet
some of them sooner or later.
I'd also really, really like to know why the demons smell like
detergent. It's fun to imagine that the devil always cleans up his
hell, but what was your idea behind that detail?

Yours faithfully, Charlie

Dear Mr Carter,

thank you very much for your answer! Of course you may put my e-mail
on your blog - it's an honor for me. ;)
The short story is AWESOME! I think Stuart's my hero number one. He's
so smart. =) And Fon Pyre is the coolest demon in the world anyway and
it's so funny he doesn't like Starbucks. Everybody in my age drinks
Stabucks coffee just because everybody else does it too, but the
coffee really isn't that good. Fon Pyre rules! I'm totally looking
forward to another book about them!

Yours faithfully, Charlie

Needless to say, I couldn't help but feel grand after I'd read each of those messages. And I had similar feelings in response to the below email from Rowen Lohmann, which came with the subject line: Hey, Your Book Was Sorta Really Lovely

Hey there! I'm Rowen, and a first-time reader of your books as of yesterday.
So, it's hot. It's humid. It's gross, and I figure, 'what better to do with my time, than dig into a book about demons and elves?'.
So I did.
And I have to say, Epoch was pretty great. Yeah yeah, I could say the ending was a touch unsatisfying, but that's only because I felt so engrossed in the characters that it was almost painful to say goodbye.
...some could also argue that I sometimes exaggerate.
None the less, I really did love the book. Every once in a while it takes a book like yours to restore my faith in the, overly-stigmatized(and sometimes for good reason), wonky genre, that is Young Adult.

Get a bit of inspiration from the Westboro baptist church, did we? That place tends to be my fallback when I need inspiration, you know, a fleshed-out model of the perfect antagonist bad-guy.
Alright. I'm blabbering a bit, but here's the condensed version of what I've been trying to articulate:
1. I loved your book.
2. I hate characters, I loved others. You did it well.
3. thanks for writing something in the genre that didn't put young people to shame. The intriguing, layered personalities of your characters had me cheering, spitting, and grasping to find something to hug.

Well done, and I'll be sure to check out some of your other things.
Hopefully this won't be my last email before the end of the world,
-Rowen

Not a bad time to be an author! Thank you Nicki, Charlie & Rowen. Your feedback gave me a real boost.